Hyper Husband Super Punch!!

You don’t want to make Al angry.

We spent most of the weekend at Ret-Conned HQ eating cookies and playing Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Now, I know we’ve talked about Scott Pilgrim a lot recently and some of you are probably getting tired of it and thinking “Pilgrim-smilgrim.” While I can’t promise you this is the last time that we’ll be talking about Scott Pilgrim, I will promise you that the whole month of October we’re only going to be talking about Batman, so come Halloween when you start thinking “I’m tired of the Dark Knight, I wish they’d talk about somebody cool - like Scott Pilgrim” you can just hit the back button on the archives and we’ll take you back, no questions, no judgement.

Anyway, so the Scott Pilgrim video game is quite awesome and is a great homage to both the books and to classic 8-bit gaming. Game play wise, it is very similar to River City Ransom[^1] as a side scrolling beat ‘em up. There’s also several homages to other video games in it whether very obvious, like the character select screen from Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World-style world map, to the more subtle, Kim Pine exits levels by riding a star like Kirby). Basic game play consists of you fighting through hordes of enemies to face off with each of the Seven Evil Exes as bosses. As you progress, your character levels up and buys items, becoming a better fighter with ever improving moves and increasing stats.

It feels like the game uses the books more as the source material instead of the actual movie. For example, in the movie the Katayanagi Twins were techno musicians that appeared in the Battle of the Bands. In the books, they were robot builders and built several robots that they sent after Scott. The game uses those robots as the mini-bosses in the Katayanagi Twin area of the game.

The best thing about the game is that it has a multi-player co-op mode with up to four players. The playable characters are Scott, Romona, Kim and Steven Stills. Each character has their own set of moves as well as two unlockable special moves. They also can call in Knives Chau to perform a special attack. With all the different abilities of the different characters, this game is definitely more fun to play with friends.

The only thing that Scott Pilgrim was missing to be the ultimate in nerd culture was an attack of Zombie hordes. Fortunately, the game has you covered as it also includes a Survival Horror Mode where, you guessed it, you get to fight a horde of unceasing zombies. Experience and levels that you can rack up fighting zombies does carry over into the main game, so if you are having difficulties in the main game go bash on some undead.

One of my favorite parts of the game is the music soundtrack done by the very awesome Anamanaguchi. Anamanaguchi is a chip-tune band who have hacked GameBoys and original NES consoles and hooked them up to be played through guitars and basses. The result is a rocking 8-bit soundtrack that really gets your blood pumping while playing. One of my favorite tracks is the one they used for the Survival Horror Mode that is only a very low deep buzz for the first 4 minutes. It really builds up the tension and spookiness of the level, before finally rocking out as the horde of zombies gets really massive.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is currently only available on the PlayStation Network for PlayStation 3. I believe it is coming out on Xbox Live Arcade later this year. If you have the chance, we highly recommend you check it out.

[^1]: Honestly, in looking at the plot for River City Ransom, I’m betting that the backstory of how Scott started dating Kim in High School is an homage to this game. Learn something new every day…